UP’s strongest subjects are in the arts and humanities, social sciences and life sciences, according to the newly-released 2018 QS World University Rankings by Broad Subject Area.

The national university received its best rankings in archaeology, in which yet again it landed in the 101-150 group, and in English language and literature (101-150) and modern languages (101-150), where in both subjects UP moved several notches up from last year’s 151-200.

The social sciences were represented by sociology (151-200; 201-250 in 2017), and politics and international studies in which UP was still in the 151-200 cluster.

Leading the sciences was agriculture and forestry with UP in 151-200.

Other subjects in which UP was ranked this year were linguistics (201-250), environmental sciences (251-300), medicine (301-350), and computer science and information systems (451-500).

Rankings of UP by subject area. Screen grab from QS website

The scores were based on global surveys of academics and employers, as well as citations per paper and h-index (a measure of both productivity and the impact of a published work) gathered from Elsevier’s Scopus database. The surveys assess international reputation in a subject while the other indicators gauge research impact.

The weighting of indicators differs for each subject. QS explains on its website: “In medicine, where publication rates are very high, research citations and the h-index account for 25 percent of each university’s total score. On the other hand, in areas with much lower publication rates such as history, these research-related indicators only account for 15 percent of the total ranking score. Meanwhile in subjects such as art and design, where there are too few papers published to be statistically significant, the ranking is based solely on the employer and academic surveys.”

UP’s detailed performance by indicator across the 48 subjects. According to QS, “it is very unusual for an institution to qualify for consideration in all 48 subjects.” Screen grab from QS website.

UP’s detailed performance by indicator across the 48 subjects. According to QS, “it is very unusual for an institution to qualify for consideration in all 48 subjects.” Screen grab from QS website.

UP was not ranked in some offered subjects because “it may not have published a sufficient number of papers” or “it may not have attracted a minimum level of recognition through [the] surveys.”